Perspicacious, according to the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, is an adjective meaning "having a ready insight into and understanding of things." There are a few derivative forms of perspicacious. The adverb form of this word is perspicaciously, and the noun is perspicacity.
Perspicacity is a desirable quality in many professions, especially those that require a lot of troubleshooting. These fellows depicted below look mighty perspicacious. They seem to know exactly what needs to be done--just the kind of mechanics I would want working on my car.
Perspicuous is a related adjective, meaning "clearly expressed and easily understood; lucid." It has a second definition, referring to a person, meaning "expressing things clearly."
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1963 Television Eyeglasses. From James Vaughn's photostream on Flickr.com. Some Rights reserved. |
The television eyeglasses pictured below are perspicuous, but not because they help the guy in the photo see television better; they actually don't work. The gentleman below is inventor and futurist Hugo Gernsback. He is modeling a mock-up of a product he believed would be available soon--so the mock-up perspicuously demonstrates his concept.
1. First, in the 1960s, parents were always telling children not to sit too close to the television set, "or you'll go blind!" I can't imagine this item would have sold very well in those days, because people would have been afraid of it.
2. One might say Hugo Gernsback predicted Google Glass!
